Maggie’s Picks 12.25.2014: “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas” by Burl Ives & “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” by Christina Perri

Light blogging in the gap time between brunch and dinner. Merry Christmas!!!!

Maggie’s Pick 12.19.2014: “Winter Wonderland” by Michael Bublé

Someday I’ll pick Christmas songs that aren’t from Michael Bublé’s album. That day is not today. There are over 200 versions of this song, so it’s kind of difficult to pick on quickly.

NaPoWriMo #2: ‘Angrier’

It’s getting warmer.

(poem-appropriate image. For we are living in a visual world, but I am a written-word girl)

“Angrier
By Maggie McGinity

Apples are the best angry fruit
Piccolo is the angriest flute
In winter I wither waiting for roots
Summer I sizzle, smothered in my soot

Anger’s just fear, fear is just sorrow
Torn-up twists in all your tomorrows
Knowing they’re just like your yesterdays
Problems and poor me’s pushed into play

Boxed-in boxer, trapped in society
Presenting calm in piety
Though I’ve run so fast, I’ve run so far
There’s something I’ve missed
The take-away twist
Silence, and someone to spar”

Quotes:

“This is what we do. Not so much argue as joust, in jest. We can’t stop pushing and pulling the taffy of words and concepts.” 
-“The Twoweeks” by Larry Duberstein

“There are some people who like nothing better than a good, regular quarrel.” 
-“Indiscretion” by Jude Morgan

“The silence is the worst part of any fight, because it’s made up of all the things we wish we could say, if only we had the guts.” 
-“Gray” by Pete Wentz

‘All That Glistens’ (new poem)

An alliteration!

But seriously. This is why February is my least favorite month. Everything’s in flux, and things make or break or completely change within the span of a few hours. It’s a time of extreme change that makes you feel strange for saying the same, and I do not care for it.

“All That Glistens
By Maggie McGinity

All that is gold does not glitter
But all that glistens now
Will thaw, refreeze, and liter
The sidewalks to lead you down

I know not feel of falling
I black: awake, on back.
I see the powder calling
To take me off my track

All that is gold does not glitter
But all that is water will
Nourish, yes, but second guess
Then linger for the kill.”

Quotes:

“I always chose the icicle: the weapon melts away.”
-“The Lovely Bones” by Alice Sebold

“You don’t really wanna stay, no
But you don’t really wanna go
You’re hot then you’re cold
You’re yes then you’re no
You’re in then you’re out
You’re up then you’re down”
-“Hot N Cold” by Katy Perry

‘Explanatory Note’/’Blood and Sorrow’ (new poems)

Hello! It’s a cold and dark and dreary day, and I’ve been saving this second poem for such a day as this. However, I realized that it is somewhat depressing, so I wrote a poem explaining why that is. I realize that I’m now like the mechanicals in “Midsummer,” but my poem is a little different from telling you I’m not a lion right before acting as a lion.

Anyways, poems! Enjoy!

“Explanatory Note
By Maggie McGinity

This was not designed
To catch a line
To remind or to find.
This was not intentioned
To garner attention
Or raise apprehensions.

I am a creature of highs and of lows
Who comes and who goes
Through the trials and throws
Of this life.
I am a creature who longs and who yearns
To belong and to learn
How to get everything right.

My life is not only night.
I’ve tried to write a love song,
Or a smiling poem.

But the darkest places, not the trite,
Beg to be written down
And written out
And set alight.
I am led where the strongest moods take me
Always far from home.

So in this tome
I am left explaining how
I live my loss aloud
While others stuff theirs down.

I am exactly like you
Except, instead of doing whatever you do
With the things you’d rather not go through,
I tear a fresh page, and make myself anew.”

“Blood and Sorrow
By Maggie McGinity

I am full of blood and sorrow.
One is easily lost.
The other leaves with silence’ cost.
But both return tomorrow. 

I am full of cold and ice.
One is thawed by rising sun.
The other’s years not fast undone,
But warmed by sacrifice. 

I am full of song and fury.
One is born anew.
The other follows you,
Watching your hearts hurry.

I am full of love and war.
Every day a battle,
As my loves move like cattle
Towards the nothing they were made for.”

Quotes:

“She shook her head. ‘I do not get on at all. I hear such different accounts of you as puzzle me exceedingly.'”
-“Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen

“Set your life on fire. Seek those who fan your flames.”
-Rumi

“Have you ever thought about what protects our hearts?
Just a cage of rib bones and other various parts
So it’s fairly simple to cut right through the mess
And to stop the muscle that makes us confess

And we are so fragile
And our cracking bones make noise
And we are just
Breakable, breakable, breakable girls and boys”
-“Breakable” by Ingrid Michaelson

‘Ode to the Missing Spring’ (possibly finished poem)

So Spring officially began a few days ago, on March 20, 2013. That means that we get to enjoy a burst of warm weather and new plant life, of greenery and we-can-go-outside-again wonder! Right?

Wrong. It’s snowing. Again. It’s snowing in my hometown, and there’s a 100% chance that it will snow in Ames within the next hour.

I’m missing Spring, so I wrote a poem about it. I’m not sure if this poem is finished yet, but I want to share it with you anyways. Enjoy!

“Ode to the Missing Spring
By Maggie McGinity

I. ‘It is here!’ the calendar states.
‘Pull out your brooms,
Your pans and vacuums.
Time to brush off a clean slate.’

But the snow descends upon us now
Blanketing, pristine
And I shout to the heavens
(Wondering how),
‘We did not intend this kind of clean.’

Today we wandered out
In t-shirts, jackets, shorts.
The hottest day so far
We may report.

But the warmth of today will fade
To the wind chill of tonight
And all the plans we might have made
Vanish without a fight.

Thrice it’s snowed this month
Within which we hoped to say,
‘This is enough,’
To see the end of our tundra land,
And return to the season which we understand.

II. I sleep on the couch like I slept on the couch,
I stay up late like I stayed up late,
I eat too much like I ate too much,
But it is not the same.

My fingers flutter not to text,
My mind spins no witty replies.
My heart longs not for what is next;
No ‘Good night’ lights my eyes.

Too much time to blink, to sink in(to) thought,
To remember last Spring Break.
A trip down memory lane is not
The vacation I wanted to take.

I don’t want to be sad
While the other students party,
And reasons to be glad
Are neither lost nor tardy

But still my heart is spent,
Wasted on certain time and space:
I’m stuck in that moment,
While you’ve had me replaced.’

One:

“You can cut all the flowers, but you cannot keep Spring from coming.”
-Pablo Neruda

Two:

“Memories warm you up on the inside. But they also tear you apart.”
-“Kafka on the Shore,” by Haruki Murakami

Three quotes:

“The deep roots never doubt spring will come.”
-Marty Rubin

P.S. I apologize for the delay of this post. My computer has taken to overheating and crashing, and posting on my iPod is slow and almost impossible. This is a combination of my efforts on both machines. I’ll let you know if/when I find a solution to this technical problem. Thanks for bearing it with me 🙂

‘Friday Night Lights’/’Honey’ (new poem)

Netflix is a wonderful thing. I use it occasionally to watch shows and movies, but my sister devours series whole in a matter of weeks or days. Her current victim: “Friday Night Lights.”

 

We’re on Season Two right now. I kinda jumped in halfway through Season One when I got home for break.

I really really like this show, but it’s hard for me to watch. It’s hard to see such awesome shows of devotion, commitment, and love in the face of adversity while I myself am alone.

I sometimes feel that loneliness is the greatest adversity. You have to stand straight up; you have no one to lean on. You can’t fall down; no one’s there to pick you up. If you get hurt, you have to heal yourself.

I’ve been quite lonely lately, as I knew I would be come winter break. I don’t have many friends left in my hometown; most of the people I care about and enjoy spending time with are usually at ISU. I actually have some ISU friends here, but I haven’t seen them since before break commenced. I wrote a rather short poem about my loneliness. Enjoy!

“Honey
By Maggie McGinity

Does not the bee pollinate the flower,
And the flower give honey to the bee?
And yet, in this codependent world,
No one depends on me.”

And now two quotes from prominent and missed females:

“And the danger is that in this move toward new horizons and far directions, that I may lose what I have now, and not find anything except loneliness.”
-Sylvia Plath

“When you have nobody you can make a cup of tea for, when nobody needs you, that’s when I think life is over.”
-Audrey Hepburn